Archive for the ‘Technology’ Category

Apr 11, 2016

Because Google has been trying to phase out dependency on Adobe’s Flash technology in favor of the free, open-source HTML5 standard player, YouTube (owned by Google) has been up to some shady tactics. The transition to HTML5 isn’t seamless as they may think or trying to force. Theoretically, browsers that do support HTML5 should automatically choose the correct format, but users usually find themselves with broken media experience.

This is an example of typical YouTube video url:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VF5jXrZfuCA

Notice the query string for the video itself is:

?v=VF5jXrZfuCA

So this is what you can try to get the Flash player working again:

Append this query string to your YouTube video:

?nohtml5=False

So it would be something like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VF5jXrZfuCA?nohtml5=False

It seems the monkeys at YouTube play around with too many query strings and they all do the same thing, or some are just meant to leave you stranded.

There may be YouTube video urls with:

?noFlash = true
?flash = flash

Or whatever query string, that will revert the dependency back to flash. But in most cases it may break the functionality because those monkeys aren’t agreeing on a single query string, but rather multiple implemenations or deliberately creating deadends.

Either way, give this a try and see if it works out for you. It does for me (for now, I guess). Good luck!

Jan 22, 2016

Z-order rendering is “fixed”, but not optimized, it’s at a satisfactory design point for me. Culling works. Performance is satisfactory, running at 60 frames per second on my quad-core PC, and a very impressive 30 frames per second on my duo-core PC. Hopefully, most people have duo-core and faster PCs these days, but it’s worth noting when I do compile list of system requirements.

So what does this all mean? It means I will more than likely be able to “emulate” at least Super Nintendo quality video games with my game engine and that’s what I originally intended.

Jan 21, 2016

You may notice that Google Chrome does not update your website’s favicon when you do because it stores a copy locally on your computer. So deleting your browser cache doesn’t do anything. Instead, you have to go to:

file. Of course, make sure Google Chrome isn’t currently running when you do. If you’re not confident about the change, then you can move the file or rename it. But Google Chrome will automatically generate a new file anyway.

Nov 21, 2015

I want to share with you my personal tips on how to implement blazing fast Qt applications. I’m just a hobbyist programmer, but I still understand the importance of programming principles such as KISS (keep it simple-stupid), OOP (object-oriented programming), optimization, utility, and user-friendliness. In the end, you’re writing a program that people want to use. Therefore, if even you can’t use the program, then you’ve done it wrong. (more…)

Oct 29, 2015

When you want to optimize HTML processing speed, you might want to minify the HTML code. This is done by removing all whitespaces, assuming your code is strongly-typed and syntax and structure is all correct. You can do this manually, which will be a pain, or use the help of an advanced text editor.

Download the latest version of Notepad++ (as of today, the latest version is 6.8.6). It’s free and way more robust than your standard Windows Notepad (obviously, if you can’t tell by the name). (more…)

Oct 19, 2015

Oct 18, 2015

UPDATE! Now he has actual Blender material lenses, not composited in Photoshop like last time. Also, the hair is still a bitch. Was looking up low-poly hair alternatives. Maybe will go that route next time have more control over styling.

With enough practice, I actually modeled exactly what I wanted. Ramping up to my Agent S comic, I read that some artists have to sculpt their own character designs for reference, which I think will help. It’s like making a dummy or action figure, you just pose it and trace or whatever. Anyway, this was a low polygon head that I applied subdivision modifier to. I also experimented with the hair particle simulator, which obviously didn’t turn out that great. It’s hard to manipulate. But there may be another technique using cloth simulator and high resolution hair texture. That might be next time.

Oct 15, 2015

Man. Wow. Blender 2.76 was just released a few days ago. And wow, look at what I churned out. I modeled the glass cup really quick. But using Cycles Renderer, took about 3 hours to render out. The 3D text was easy, but I’m still challenged by how to make the bevel for the border/outline along with bevel for the inset area. Anyway, the performance seem to be way better, no more crashing. There’s also a new cloth, wind physics simulator. And a “portal” light tool that sucks up the ray tracing, which improves rendering times. All have yet to be tested by me, but Blender just impresses me with every release. They’re latest open source movie is called Cosmos Laundromat. It also looks incredible.